We have a lot to learn from teachers’ unions | Opinion

Throughout the pandemic, teachers’ unions have been a powerful force. And they have a lot to teach us.

In the United States, about 70% of public school educators are unionized. As of 2021, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), the two largest teachers’ unions, claimed a working membership of 3.6 million educators, which is over half of all public-sector union employees, and a quarter of all unionized workers in the country.

Teachers’ unions do more than give teachers raises and better pensions and benefits. They help teachers address the needs of school families and school communities.

In the last decade, teachers’ unions have forged stronger relationships with local communities (including parents) to advocate for contracts that provide resources to school facilities and school families. All of this helps children and their families.

» READ MORE: Teachers’ union president: Philly schools are headed toward a dangerous precipice | Opinion

But in the last three years, teachers’ unions have been effectively demonized in discussions around living through and with the COVID-19 pandemic. While most people tolerated school building closures in the early days of the pandemic, the demands to reopen schools for in-person learning became more and more evident as we prepared for the 2020-21 school year. The “open schools” advocates often participated and promoted anti-teachers’ union rhetoric and demands. In some communities, this movement has combined with others, such as those against critical race theory, popping up in affluent suburbs bordering Philadelphia and conservative rural communities.

We should not be vilifying teachers’ unions — instead, we should be learning from them. Teachers and their unions have been setting an example for how to protect members while also fulfilling their obligations to educate the more than 1.7 million kids enrolled in Pennsylvania public schools.

“We should not be vilifying teachers’ unions — instead, we should be learning from them.”

The pandemic has presented an opportunity for workers to rethink their collective bargaining rights, their deserved protections, and what employers (and states) should be required to do to minimize harm and exposure in the workplace. Let’s follow the strong example teachers’ unions have provided.

To be sure, teachers’ unions aren’t perfect. Teaching, like most caregiving professions, is a female-dominated profession, but teachers’ union leaders have traditionally been white men.

But here, again, teachers’ unions are showing us how to do better. Today, the AFT and NEA are both led by women. And they’ve had to endure a lot of criticism in the debates about in-person learning.

For example, Randi Weingarten, the president of the AFT, has been one of the strongest advocates for expansive in-person teaching and learning with proper safety measures (medical-grade quality masks, comprehensive testing, and contact tracing), but has been vilified in the press and other social media outlets for supporting “pro-lockdown Democrats” and “anti-classroom learning.” Becky Pringle, the NEA leader (and Girls’ High grad), has been attacked repeatedly for her concerns about the safety of teachers and students under COVID-19.

But their efforts have paid off. Evidence shows that teachers’ unions have been at the forefront of pushing for and securing more robust COVID-19 health and safety measures — such as universal masking in schools — that often reflect and build on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 safety recommendations and mitigation strategies. In Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Federation for Teachers has requested that School District officials provide teachers and students with adequate PPE and classroom air filters, expand COVID-19 testing and vaccination programs, guarantee a school nurse in every school, and implement sensible metrics for school building closures. In Chicago, city officials conceded to the similar demands of the Chicago Teachers Union, arguably making the schools safer for everyone.

The lessons from teachers’ unions can apply elsewhere. From grocery stores to coffee shops, we are witnessing a growing propensity to organize for fair living wages, health care, and benefits that exceed previous labor movements’ focus on a higher minimum wage. Let us learn from the teachers’ efforts and prioritize our most vulnerable workers, the communities they live and work in, and walk in solidarity with those taking the greatest risks and facing the highest costs.

Akira Drake Rodriguez is a professor of urban planning at the University of Pennsylvania. Erika Kitzmiller is a professor of education at Barnard College and the author of “The Roots of Educational Inequality: Philadelphia’s Germantown High School, 1907-2014.”